The recorded history of stringed musical instrument construction includes many designs claiming to influence tone production, including devices to record and/or transducer natural acoustic tones into an electronic signal for amplification. The soundboard can be the principal tone producing member of most stringed musical instruments, and many designs for soundboard construction are recorded, such as Taylor in U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,770.
Most prior art designs for fretted instruments depict a single circular soundhole in the instrument's body, or soundbox. Kaman, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,056,034 records a guitar soundboard with two circular soundholes positioned on either side of a fingerboard.
It is often necessary to perform repairs and modifications within the body, or soundbox of a stringed musical instrument. Wechter, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,217 records a removable panel located in the tailblock.
Most recorded designs for stringed instruments employ tuning devices (tuners) mounted onto a peghead, and fretted instruments often show geared tuners being used for tensioning the strings. One example of geared tuners being attached to a stringed instrument body is documented by Schneider in U.S. Pat. No. 3,858,480.
Proelsdorfer's U.S. Pat. No. 2,304,597, records secondary tuning devices mounted onto a tailpiece for a bowed instrument. Primary tensioning of the strings is performed by tuners attached on the end of a traditional peghead. Secondary tuning devices are designed as a pivoted bell lever controlled by a downward pushing rod. Unlike geared tuners, which provide continuous tensioning of an attached string, pivoted bell lever designs can provide only a limited range of tension to a string, and are thus typically suitable only as secondary tuners for the “final tuning of the string”.
Electro-magnetic transducers produce a wide variety of amplified tones according to the design of each such transducer. Having modular or interchangeable electro-magnetic transducers offers a musician the ability to create a wide variety of tonal qualities from a single stringed musical instrument. Allen, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,252,777, recorded designs for an electric guitar that includes interchangeable electro-magnetic transducers. Donnell, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,614,688, records interchangeable electro-magnetic transducers for acoustic stringed musical instruments.
Many examples of prior art record the use of microphones mounted onto or within a musical instrument for the purpose of recording acoustic tone. De Byl, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,748,886, employs a single column of foam to mount two separate microphone elements within an acoustic guitar. De Byl defines no clear location of the microphone elements within the soundbox of the stringed musical instrument, except to note that they receive acoustical energy from opposite sides of a foam column. Donnell, in U.S. U.S. Pat. No. 6,441,292 records transducers that mount multiple microphone elements on to separate flexible mounting arms of approximately equal length.
De Byl, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,748,886, also employs the foam column for the purpose of dampening acoustic musical energy in order to control electronic feedback.